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Beginner's tanking for Paladins
The purpose of this guide is to give advice and guidelines to paladins tanking low level instances and take a bit of the guess work out of your first few tanking trips. To start, here are a few things to keep in mind: -You don’t need to be spec protection to tank initial instances. Early on, differences will be minor and you can do a fine job with any spec you choose. -Although it seems like common sense, I’ve seen it. Don’t tank with a two handed weapon. Bring a one hander and shield with you, the increased mitigation and blocking will keep your healer happy. -Lay on Hands is your get out of jail free card right now. Save it for the last second. -A good habit to get in early are macros, make one for letting the group know your pulling, a wipe is imminent, incoming mobs, out of mana, etc… That being said, lets take a look at some tactics and abilities you’ll be using, as well as useful rotations. Before Level 16 First and foremost, tanking anything prior to level 16 is a poor idea. You receive righteous fury at level 16, which increases the threat generated by your holy spells by 80 percent, without that. generating enough threat, especially on more than one mob will be difficult and is just not fun or advised. Prior to receiving consecration at level 20, your tanking should look something like this: We have two choices for an aura at this point, either devotion or retribution. The choice is very situational. While the extra mitigation provided by devotion aura is a welcome plus at these earlier levels, retribution aura will do wonders in helping maintain threat, especially against multiple targets. My advice is to stick with retribution aura, at least until you get consecration. At that point you can make your own decision, whether you need more armor to keep your priest happy, or extra threat production because of over zealous DPS. Also, if grouping with another paladin, be sure your auras don’t overlap and you can have the best of both worlds. At this point you have only seal of righteousness, keep it on at all times to produce extra threat, the proc is holy damage, which will take advantage of righteous fury. For single targets, open with hand of reckoning to produce initial threat and follow with a judgment, generally wisdom will be a good choice, since your healer will be keeping you filled up, but if you see your healer falling behind, hit light to give your health a small boost. Most mobs won’t last long enough for this, so this generally will only apply to a boss. Hand of reckoning should be kept in reserve, should the mob break away from you. Continual threat production will come from your judgments, seal of righteousness and possibly retribution aura. You can spam your judgments as soon as they are available or hold off a bit depending on mana. To break it down in a rotation sequence, Hand of Reckoning -> Judgment -> Judgment Multiple targets at this point are a bit more tricky. Retribution aura should be on for this. In an ideal world, your group will give you a moment to establish threat, but this is not always the case, so be weary of your group mates jumping in too early. Your best bet here is to pull the group by targeting with hand of reckoning. After this, target the next mob and hit it with a judgment. Now, with your holy spells on cool down, attracting additional mobs will be tough. Target the next mob with your auto attack and from there rotate your taunt and judgment around the group, using raid icons to focus on one mob is a big help here. Additionally, you can throw out a heal if mana allows. Level 20 and Beyond At level 20, our lives become much easier with consecration. Consecration is an AOE holy damage spell that is the hallmark of paladin tanking in my opinion. Generally this spell coupled with retribution aura will be more than enough to maintain threat. Against single targets, nothing much changes from your last rotation. Consecration is a waste of mana against single targets and should be avoided. You also gain exorcism at level 20, a single target ranged holy spell. For extra threat you can now open this way, Hand of Reckoning -> Exorcism -> Judgment Realistically though, exorcism isn’t really needed and it is your choice. Against a boss however, the extra threat never hurts. Our strategy for multiple targets however is now completely different. You have a few options on how to start the pull. I generally would prefer to pull using hand of reckoning and hit consecration as the mobs are incoming so they walk right onto it. From there, wail on each mob and use judgments, saving hand of reckoning just in case you lose threat. Sometimes you may need to refresh consecration during a pull. Your other option for initiating is a body pull, simply running through the mobs to grab their attention and then hitting consecration. This is really the basics for threat production and pulling at this point. Pulling tactics won’t change much until protection paladins receive avengers shield from their talent tree. Let’s move onto a few more spells and how to use them. Useful Abilities of Note Righteous defense, this ability will force up to three mobs wailing on your squishy DPS or healer to come after you. Hand of reckoning works better for single mobs, but this works if that is on cool down. Best saved for when your rogue decides to have his stealth break. Hand of protection should be reserved for the healer. It will protect them for six seconds from damage. Finally, hammer of justice is useful for stopping runners. Gear Onto gear, for those of you wanting to strictly tank. Obviously stick with mail. Green items to look for are “of the Bear”, which provide strength and stamina. Don’t be overly concerned with intellect. Yes, a larger mana pool is nice, but a larger health pool is nicer. Here is a list of some items found in early instances that will prove useful. The Cursed Felblade and Cavedweller Bracers are solid items from the first instance you’ll likely run, RFC. The sword, while not providing any stats, is a solid one hander for this point in terms of damage. The bracers provide useful stats and better armor than you’ll likely find on any wrist piece for awhile. Wailing Caverns provides several useful items, most notably a good shield. Two of note are worth getting, either the Worn Turtle Shell Shield or Seedcloud buckler. The buckler is preferred, as it provides more armor, block value and some intellect to bolster your mana pool. Other than that, a few blue mail pieces are available, of note being the Mutant Scale Breastplate from Mutanus. Deadmines is mainly useful for acquiring a better weapon. My pick is Smites Reaver. Beyond these initial instances, pay mind to items offering stamina and strength first. Agility and intellect are nice to have as well. Future Hopefully this has given some useful insight to first time paladin tanks. Future updates will provide advice for higher level rangers in the classic content. Category:Guides Category:Tanking Category:Paladins